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The Mir Space Station was a true Soviet engineering wonder, an achievement comparable with the US landing on the Moon. Yet in its later years, Mir survived some horrific & hair-raising accidents... The post The Awful and Wonderful History of the Mir Space Station | Curious Minds Podcast appeared first on Curious Minds Podcast.

Archimedes is famous for being Ancient Greece's greatest engineer. Yet a random discovery - a prayers book found in an old church in Turkish Istanbul, casts this mysterious genius in an even more surprising light. The post The Lost Manuscript of Archimedes | Curious Minds Podcast appeared first on Curious Minds Podcast.

In 1989, a message was found in a virus: "Eddie Lives…Somewhere in Time!". 'Eddie' was a particularly nasty virus, and its discovery led a young Bulgarian security researcher down a rabbit hole, on a hunt for the prolific creator of the Eddie virus: The Dark Avenger.  The post The Dark Avenger [From: Malicious.Life] | Curious Minds Podcast appeared first on Curious Minds Podcast.

After describing the Software Crisis in the previous episode, we discuss the various methodologies and practices implemented over the years to combat the complexities of software development. We'll tell the sad story of the FBI's VCF project - perhaps the most expensive failed software project ever - and hear about Dr. Fred Brooks' classic book, 'The Mythical Man-Month'. The post Are Software Bugs Inevitable? Part 2: The Most Expensive Failed Software Project Ever | Curious Minds Podcast appeared first on Curious Minds Podcast.

Software errors and random bugs are rather common: We’ve all seen the infamous Windows “blue screen of death”... But is there really nothing we can do about it? Are these errors – from small bugs to catastrophic mistakes – inevitable? In this episode, we'll tell the story of FORTRAN, the groundbreaking high-level computer language, and the sad, sad tale of the Denver Airport Baggage Disaster. Don't laugh, it's a serious matter. The post Are Software Bugs Inevitable? Part 1: FORTRAN and the Denver Airport Baggage Disaster | Curious Minds Podcast appeared first on Curious Minds Podcast.

In 1983, president Ronald Reagan shocked the world when he announced that the United States was developing an ultra-modern defense system against intercontinental ballistic missiles. Hundreds of billions of dollars were invested in the system’s development - But then, in 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed, and with it – the Star Wars initiative. Was Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative the reason for the Soviet Union’s collapse? The post Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense (SDI) Initiative, AKA – “Star Wars” | Curious Minds Podcast appeared first on Curious Minds Podcast.

The fall of Napster (see Part I of this series) has left a vacuum in the world of file sharing - and as the saying goes, the Internet abhors vacuum... Various File Sharing programs such as Gnutella, Kazaa and others quickly filled the void. In this episode, we'll describe Grokster's legal battle against the Record Companies, the sinister poisoning of file sharing networks by OverPeer - and the rise of BitTorrent. The post The History of File Sharing, Part 2: Grokster & BitTorrent | Curious Minds Podcast appeared first on Curious Minds Podcast.

Napster, a revolutionary Peer-to-Peer file sharing software, was launched in 1999 - and forever changed the media world. In this episode, we'll tell the story of Sean Fanning and Sean Parker, its creators, and talk about the legal battle it fought with the record companies - and Metallica. The post The History of File Sharing, Part 1 (of 2): The Rise & Fall of Napster | Curious Minds Podcast appeared first on Curious Minds Podcast.

Heroes of Podcasting: An interview with Aaron Mahnke about the role of storytelling in podcasting, his inspirations and how he started Lore. The post Heroes Of Podcasting #5: Aaron Mahnke, Lore Podcast | Curious Minds Podcast appeared first on Curious Minds Podcast.

Todd has an amazing story which begun with a serious injury - but ultimately led to a surprising career as an early entrepreneur in the new media of podcasting. He wrote the first book on podcasting and signed one of the first advertising deals. Today, Todd's company is one of the biggest players in this new media. The post Heroes Of Podcasting #4: Todd Cochrane, CEO of RawVoice (Blubrry) | Curious Minds Podcast appeared first on Curious Minds Podcast.

Leo Laporte is one of the very first podcasters.In 2005 Leo left - or almost left - traditional radio to start his own podcasting network, centered around cutting edge technology news, called TWIT. TWIT quickly became one of the most successful podcast networks with millions of downloads and award winning show such as This Week In Tech, Security Now and the New Screen Savers. The post Heroes Of Podcasting #3: Leo Laporte, This Week In Tech | Curious Minds Podcast appeared first on Curious Minds Podcast.

Jay Soderberg started in podcasting back in 2006. Jay’s story is rather unique, since his first steps in podcasting were in the corporate world, whereas the vast majority of podcasters back then were independent creators. The post Heroes Of Podcasting #2: Jay Soderberg (The PodVader), VP of BlogTalkRadio | Curious Minds Podcast appeared first on Curious Minds Podcast.

This series explores the history and future of podcasting, and each episode will feature a single guest who is a pioneer of podcasting. This time, we're interviewing Prof. Karlheinz Brandenburg - inventor of the popular MP3 format which a critical innovation in Podcasting history. The post Heroes Of Podcasting #1: Inventor of MP3, Prof. Karlheinz Brandenburg | Curious Minds Podcast appeared first on Curious Minds Podcast.

In 1998, a group of people broke away from the Free Software Foundation and created instead the Open Source Initiative. What were their motives? Richard Stallman, the founder of the FSF, and Tim O'Reilly who helped popularize the term 'Open Source' discuss the history of Open Source & Free Software. The post The History of Open Source & Free Software, Pt. 2 | Curious Minds Podcast appeared first on Curious Minds Podcast.

This episode will focus on a few of the lesser-known children of the Solar System neighborhood: The Oort Cloud, Kuiper's Belt & Dwarf Planets. The post The Solar System’s Little Known Members – Astronomy Shorts 4 | Curious Minds Podcast appeared first on Curious Minds Podcast.

In the early 1980's Richard Stallman founded the Free Software Foundation (FSF): a socio-technological movement that revolutionized the software world. In this episode we'll hear Stallman himself talking about the roots of the movement, and learn of its early struggles. The post The History of Open Source & Free Software, Pt. 1, w/ Special Guest: Richard Stallman| Curious Minds Podcast appeared first on Curious Minds Podcast.

Humans have yet to have set foot on a different planet, but today, from their limited vantage point on Earth, astronomers are able to notice a few breathtaking phenomena that are beyond human imagination. This episode reveals some of the greatest, most amazing, violent and impressive meteorological phenomena seen on other planets in the Solar System. The post Astronomy Shorts 3: Crazy Weather On Other Planets| Curious Minds appeared first on Curious Minds Podcast.

In the previous part of the episode we learned how linguists were able to reconstruct bits of the ancient & long lost Indo-European language. In this episode we'll discover what can these words tell us about life in the Bronze Age, family ties and nomadic relationships. We'll also learn about the links between Genetics & Linguistics: a recent genetic finding that explains the unprecedented success of that language: a single lucky mutation that enabled the Yamna People, as they are called today, to digest milk. The post The Indo-European Language, Pt. 2: Linguistics & Genetics| Curious Minds Podcast appeared first on Curious Minds Podcast.

A surprising discovery made by a William Jones, British judge in India uncovered the existence of an ancient language, the ancestor of an amazing variety of modern languages - from English and French, to the Persian Farsi and Indian Sanskrit. The speakers of this language didn't leave any written evidence behind, but researchers were able to reconstruct it never the less. How? it's a kind of a fairy tale, really... ;-) The post The Indo-European Language, Pt. 1 | Curious Minds appeared first on Curious Minds Podcast.

A journey to outer space has many dangers and challenges; but for those courageous astronauts, the trip might be worthwhile. Some of the planets and moons in the Solar System have views that are really, but really, out of this world: The Caloris Basin, Iapetus and Miranda. The post Astronomy Shorts 2: Three Breathtaking Views within the Solar System | Curious Minds appeared first on Curious Minds Podcast.